On the inside, the Apollo includes a choise of an Intel Core i5-8350 or Core i7-8550U processor. That's a lower powered chip than the Core i7-7820HQ processor in the Surface Studio 2, but it should be sufficient for getting some work done. Other hardware specs includ up to 512GB of SSD storage and up to 2TB of HDD storage, up to 32GB of RAM, and a choice between integrated graphics or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti discrete graphics.
The Apollo also includes a front-facing camera, but there's no word on its resolution or whether it supports Windows Hello like the Surface Studio.The Sefree Apollo is set to go up for crowdfunding later this year, and you can sign up for updates and a chance to snag the super early bird pricing at the Apollo website. Prices will start out at $1,549 and top out at $2,199. If you're looking to pick something up a little sooner, check out our list of Surface Studio 2 alternatives.
If your laptop no longer runs as long as it once did, then it certainly could be an issue with your battery getting on in years and losing its ability to hold a charge. Or there could be a power-hungry app consuming more than its fair share of battery resources. Before you replace your laptop's battery (or your entire laptop), it's well worth your time to check the Windows Task Manager to see if one of your apps is causing your battery woes and not the battery itself. This tried-and-true Windows utility has a couple of new tricks (read: columns) up its sleeve.
With Windows 10 October 2018 Update, Task Manager received some attention. It now has two new and useful columns that show power usage information for the apps you have running, along with any background processes.
The Power usage column informs you whether an app is on the low or high side of drawing power from your battery. You'll find it corresponds closely to CPU and memory usage, but it's still useful to see Windows 10's estimate of an app's power consumption in words.For the Power usage trend column, you'll need to wait a couple of minutes for it to populate. It shows how much power an app or process has used over the past 2 minutes.
For an app consuming too much of your battery's power, you can select it in Task Manager and then hit the End Task button in the lower-right corner to close it.
For a longer trend line, go to Settings > System > Battery and click See which apps are affecting your battery life. Here, you can see which apps have used the most battery resources over the past week or the last 6 or 24 hours.
What to do when your ice maker stops making ice: Don't be so quick to make a service call when your ice maker stops working. Try these simple troubleshooting techniques and fixes first to save yourself money and frustration.We are currently reviewing the brand-new Dell XPS 15 7590 and the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 2019, which is almost identical to the multimedia laptop ThinkPad X1 Extreme. We want to share our initial impressions and measurements of the screens. Very good: Both 1080p screens are very bright and show accurate colors.
It is an interesting battle in the segment of 15.6-inch multimedia laptops. HP does not offer a successor for its EliteBook 1050 G1, so we are primarily interested in the comparison between the Dell XPS 15 7590 and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme 2019 (or their workstation counterparts Dell Precision 5540 and ThinkPad P1 Gen2, respectively).
We are currently reviewing the new XPS 15 7590 and the ThinkPad P1 2019, both equipped with a matte 1080p screen. It is the default screen option on the XPS 15, but it is an optional 500 Nits HDR screen on the P1 2019. The following table summarizes the specs of the models, but we will also review other SKUs soon.
The cases of the two models have not changed, but a direct comparison is still interesting. The XPS 15 7590 has a smaller footprint, while the ThinkPad P1 2019 is about 200 grams lighter, despite the additional dedicated graphics card. The build quality/stability is great on both machines. The Lenovo looks a bit more restrained with its dark design, the Dell is a bit more noble with its silver lid. However, this is obviously a matter of taste.
Both review units are equipped with matte 1080p screens. The Dell XPS 15 7590 uses a panel from Sharp, while the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 2019 is equipped with a panel from Innolux (even though Lenovo uses multiple vendors for their displays). Both panels are supposed to reach 500 nits; Dell uses this panel by default, Lenovo only offers it as an option (default is a 300 nits panel).
Both screens are very good subjectively and we believe they will be very popular among customers. The Full-HD resolution is still sufficient for many usage scenarios and there are some positive aspects like the lack of scaling issues, matte surfaces, and improved power consumption/battery life compared to 4K or even OLED alternatives.
The measurements of both models are also very good: Both manage average luminance results above 500 nits in combination with high contrast ratios. However, the panel in the XPS 15 has the slight edge in terms of maximum luminance and color gamut. There is also a major difference when we look at the brightness levels. While the ThinkPad P1 2019 reduces the luminance very quickly (150 nits @ 80%), the brightness reduction is more linear on the XPS 15 (150 nits @ 25%). This brings us to one problem of the XPS 15 though, because there is PWM flickering at a brightness of 25% or lower. The frequency is comparatively high at 1020 Hz, but you will often use the affected brightness levels in darker environments, so the flickering might be an issue over longer periods. The ThinkPad P1 also has another advantage in darker environments thanks to its lower minimum luminance (10 vs. 28.2 nits), which is noticeable.
We can only give you our first results for the Dell XPS 15 7590 at this time. It lasts more than 14 hours in our WLAN test at an adjusted luminance of 150 nits, even though the predecessor lasted a bit longer. This is still an excellent result and the optional OLED screen in particular should consume much more power. We also expect shorter battery life for the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 2019 due to the smaller battery capacity (80 Wh vs. 97 Wh). We included both 2018 versions of the ThinkPad P1 (FHD & 4K) for reference.